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Kenya is in line to turn into a hub for carbon seize and storage, after Swiss firm Climeworks introduced it’s trying into choices for a large-scale facility within the nation.
Climework’s attainable entry into the nation is a significant increase for Kenya’s ambitions to turn into a regional chief in carbon seize. Climeworks has important credentials within the trade, having already developed the world’s first main business direct air seize and storage facility in Iceland. The agency raised 600m Swiss francs ($650m) from main international traders in its most up-to-date funding spherical.
In keeping with the UK’s Nationwide Grid, carbon seize includes the seize of CO2 emissions from industrial processes, equivalent to metal and cement manufacturing, or from the burning of fossil fuels in energy technology. This carbon is then transported from the place it was produced, through ship or in a pipeline, and saved deep underground in geological formations.
Daniel Nathan, chief undertaking growth officer at Climeworks, advised African Enterprise that Kenya offers “a slightly distinctive alternative”. The East African Rift Valley affords ideally suited situations for storing carbon in its mineralised kind, he says. And Kenya’s geothermal sources present a supply of renewable energy for DAC (direct air seize) machines, together with the warmth wanted for the machines to function.
Individually, the East African nation can be set to host the world’s second largest pilot for direct air seize (DAC) expertise. Venture Hummingbird, led by startup Octavia Carbon, will goal to seize 1,000 tonnes of carbon yearly from subsequent yr. The captured carbon shall be mineralised by Octavia’s associate firm, Cella Mineral Storage, and saved within the huge chasm of the Rift Valley for tens of millions of years.
Learn extra about carbon markets in our particular Street to Cop28 file.
Mineralisation
Climeworks is exploring alternatives in Kenya alongside Nice Carbon Valley, an organization searching for to ascertain industrial parks in Kenya that will include DAC amenities and depend on geothermal vitality.
Kenya is already the world’s seventh-largest producer of geothermal energy, though it nonetheless has important untapped potential.
The expansion of Kenya’s DAC trade is nice information for geothermal builders. DAC firms could be main off-takers of electrical energy and warmth generated by geothermal vitality, which might make geothermal tasks extra financially viable. Carbon seize can due to this fact “be a catalyst for constructing a few of the capability that could possibly be accessible,” says Nathan.
Nathan says that Nice Carbon Valley will play an important function in serving to Climeworks consider the alternatives and put together for market entry. The agency can even assist Climeworks to pick a associate for mineralising the carbon that it captures.
Mineralisation strategies contain speeding-up the method of turning carbon dioxide from a fuel to a carbonate mineral. This course of, left to nature, would take many hundreds of years however Climeworks’ associate Carbfix says it has achieved this in lower than two years at its undertaking in Iceland. CO2 is injected into water and saved in basalt rock – a substance present in abundance within the Rift Valley.
Different carbon seize tasks world wide contain the utilisation of captured CO2. Certainly, CO2 has all kinds of makes use of, together with in bottling vegetation, in greenhouses, or within the manufacturing of e-fuels. Whereas Nathan doesn’t dismiss the chance that Climeworks might provide CO2 for a undertaking of this type, he stresses that the corporate’s main objective is to retailer captured carbon.
In doing so, Climeworks is ready to increase income by way of the sale of carbon credit. Credit from DAC are far costlier than credit offered by tasks that seize carbon by way of tree planting. Nonetheless, the quantity of carbon captured and mineralised by firms like Climeworks might be simply quantified – and consumers of carbon credit might be assured that mineralised carbon shall be saved securely for a nearly infinite period of time. Climeworks introduced final month that it’s working to attain certification underneath the usual developed by verification supplier Puro.earth.
A last determination on whether or not to spend money on Kenya remains to be a “few years” away, Nathan says. The corporate must discover a appropriate web site for capturing and storing carbon, the place both geothermal vitality or one other renewable energy supply is out there. Nathan provides that navigating the allowing course of and securing entry to finance can even be key challenges.
However he’s assured that obstacles might be overcome, enabling Kenya to profit from the benefits bestowed by geology. “We’re optimistic that the subsequent couple of years will give us all these solutions,” he says.
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